Sam Roberts appears on Without Feathers, the hotly-anticipated new album, from fellow Montrealers The Stills, due in stores on May 9.

"I play some acoustic guitar on a great song called Shoplifter," Roberts told the Sun in a recent interview. "We know The Stills because we share a rehearsal space with them."

As for those "next big scene" articles of a year or so ago about Montreal -- the city that gave us Arcade Fire, Roberts, The Stills, The Wolf Parade, The Dears, and others -- Roberts said he felt both proud and paranoid.

"Some of us who have grown up here and played music here our whole lives were proud to see a city like Montreal get its due because there always has been a lot of great music," said Roberts. "It's not just that it's gone unnoticed. I mean, it's been completely off the radar the whole time. So it was like from nothing to this big thing all at once. And then, all of a sudden, you start getting paranoid, as musicians tend to do, and think, 'Well, is this going to disrupt the flow of creativity? Is this going to bring in all these unwanted elements that have allowed us to do this for all this time?'"

And did it?

"No, The Eye Of Sauron will turn elsewhere," said Roberts making a reference to The Lord Of The Rings' evil presence. "That's what'll happen."

Roberts just announced a show this week at the Phoenix on April 27 while The Stills play the same venue on May 11-12.

SMOKE ANOTHER DOOBIE: If you're wondering about that trippy, fantasy-inspired album cover for Roberts' new disc, Chemical City, in stores this week, the rocker explained it this way: "I love it," he told the Sun. "I've always read a lot of science fiction and fantasy fiction, especially when I was growing up. So we found this guy who's an illustrator out in Alberta -- his name is Ken Dewar -- and we said, 'Ken, here's our idea, what can you do with it?' And he was, like, 'Well, I think I can cook something up.' And he came back with this incredible thing, right off the top. And I was, 'Oh, my God, I can't believe that this is going to be on our record.'"

And no, Roberts said he wasn't pressured by his record label to have his handsome mug on the cover.

"Record companies, you can make them enthusiastic about things, you know, it's how you go about it."